There have been innumerable variations on the theme of traps for rodents and other small animals, including traps which are designed to capture the animals alive for humane relocation and those which are designed to kill the trapped animal. This field of invention is continually active; for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,626 issued on May 5, 1992, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,682, issued on Apr. 30, 1991, involve traps designed to kill the trapped animal; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,312 issued on Apr. 9, 1991, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,382, issued on Jan. 15, 1991, disclose traps which are designed not to kill the trapped animal, illustrate these continuing efforts to invent the "perfect mouse trap."
These inventions, as well as a vast variety of other trapping devices previously invented and used for this purpose, all have certain characteristics and limitations which render them undesirable or ineffective in one way or another. For example, the most commonly-used trap, with a u-shaped, spring-loaded bar, results in the killing of an animal, but usually not without a certain amount of struggle on the part of the trapped animal. After successfully trapping of an animal with this type of trap, a certain amount of cleanup in the area where the animal is trapped is often required and the potential exists for the escape of various pests, such as fleas, which inhabited the animal prior to its demise. In addition, this type of trap poses some risk to the user in setting the trap and from inadvertent triggering if the trap must be moved or removed from a particular location. These characteristics are fairly typical of traps designed to kill an animal when the trap is sprung.
In general, the traps designed to capture an animal alive tend to be complex, bulky, or provide for a complicated or inconvenient entry point for the intended victim. Other traps such as the "Have-a-Hart" which provides for entry from either end, while relatively simple and straight forward, are expensive.